The invention relates to a motor vehicle including at least two cameras spaced apart from each other at least in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle for detecting the environment of the motor vehicle, at least one processing device and at least one display device, wherein the processing device is configured to generate at least one target image from the camera data of the at least two cameras, wherein the target image includes two image regions arranged next to each other, wherein the content of the first image region is determined from the image data of the first camera and the content of the second image region is determined from the image data of the second camera, and wherein the processing device is configured to control the display device to output the target image.
Camera monitoring systems gain increasing importance for modern motor vehicles. One of the applications of a camera-monitoring-system is to utilize cameras and monitors to replace conventional rearview mirrors. The replacement of a conventional mirror by one or more cameras arranged on the motor vehicle as well as at least one display device ensures a reliable representation of defined regions of the environment behind the vehicle, independent on the driver's seating position. Under certain conditions camera-monitoring-systems arranged on the outside of the motor vehicle may also obviate the arrangement of mirrors on the outside of the motor vehicle. This is particularly advantageous with regard to optimizing aerodynamic drag as well as an attractive design of the motor vehicle.
For safety reasons and due to legal requirements in some countries, the field of view as well as the display size of objects within the display have to correspond to the display size of conventional mirrors. Hence, the camera of the system has to be limited to a certain field of view and often has to be fixed so as to protrude far beyond the vehicle contour to avoid the vehicle contour from obscuring the relevant field of view.
Limiting the field of view to the field of view that corresponds to the field of view of a conventional mirror creates a large dead angle that is neither covered by the head rotation of the driver nor by the camera. Furthermore, the requirement of placing cameras at outermost points of the vehicle strongly reduces the advantages of using a camera-monitoring-system as opposed to conventional mirrors, i.e., the improvement of aerodynamics and better design compatibility.
While it is possible to reduce the dead angle by extending the field of view of the camera, this, however, leads to a reduction in size of the displayed images which critically impacts safety. Furthermore, this solution does not contribute to an improvement of the aerodynamics or a better design compatibility.